Jan., 1919. Annual Report of the Director. 



237 



lication of the Musetim some years ago. A valuable museum purchase is 

 represented by the grave material secured from a cave on the Pecos 

 River, Val Verde Co., West Texas, by Mr. J. H. Hudson. The principal 

 object was dug up iom feet undergroimd, being the skeleton of an 

 Indian child in excellent state of preservation, wrapped in an antelope 

 skin and adorned with a necklace of shell beads of intrinsic value. In 

 the same cave were found a finely woven mat with very interesting 

 painted designs, two plain imdecorated mats, several deer or antelope 

 skins, two smaller mats, a rabbit fur robe, and a bone awl. Besides there 

 is the skull of an Indian woman and some detached bones discovered 

 in another cave. Prominent among the year's accessions is a rare robe, 

 the gift of Mr. Homer E. Sargent, which is a welcome addition to the 

 choice collection of blankets given by him last year. It is a blanket 

 made at Spu^zum, B. C, about 1863; it soon passed into the possession 

 of a Hudson Bay Company's factor, in whose family it remained for 

 more than fifty years until it was piurchased for Mr. Sargent. While this 

 type of blanket was formerly produced by Lower Thompson and some 

 of the neighboring Lower Frazer Indians of Yale, not more than six are 

 known to be now in existence. Through Mr. Edward E. Ayer, the 

 Museum purchased several articles from the rapidly vanishing Tolowa 

 tribe in the extreme northwestern part of California; among these being 

 two fine buckskin festival dresses, also a beautiful head-band worn in 

 the Jumping or Fall dance. A metate with mtiller from Mexico was 

 turned over to the Department as a gift from Mr. Ayer. The most im- 

 portant addition of this year is represented by the material received in 

 exchange from Mr. George G. Heye, director of the Museum of the 

 American Indian, New York, and making a total of seven hundred 

 objects. The collection covers two regions: Ecuador and the West 

 Indies. The majority of the material comes from the West Indies 

 (412 specimens): Trinidad, Carriacou, St. Kitts, St. Vincent, Santa 

 Lucia, Grenada, the Virgin Islands, and Cuba. It contains a large 

 quantity of stone axes of different shapes and of shell celts which are 

 available for exhibition. The balance of the West Indian material 

 consists of pottery fragments and sherds, entire vessels being excessively 

 rare from this region. A large number of the fragments contain relief 

 figures suitable for exhibition, but, on the whole, the collection has 

 greater scientific value because of its rarity. The Ecuador collection is 

 excellent, consisting of 288 specimens, principally entire pottery vessels 

 of high exhibition quality and of types not heretofore possessed by the 

 museum. There are also a few stone and a very few metal pieces from 

 this region. On the whole it is an excellent collection of almost perfect 

 exhibition value. Two sacred bundles from the Sauk and Fox were 



